About Me

I am the Pastor/Teacher of Rivers of Joy Baptist Church in Minford, Ohio since August 2008. I am married to Charity since June 14, 1969. I have four grown children. Having served in the local church for over forty years as Pastor/Teacher, Asso., Youth Pastor, Minister of Education, Building Upkeep, Camp Director, Sunday School Teacher, etc. Also I have worked in the public place for as many years as I have preached. Charity and her sister are co owner of Union Mills Conf. (Bakery) in West Portsmouth Ohio

Shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

I just posted yesterday the message I preached Sunday Evening from Philippians 1:21. To Die Is Gain, If I have Lived for Christ Today. These who have died with the world mourning for their lost, died in vain most likely.

Actress and model Farrah Fawcett lost her long battle with cancer today dying at the age 62, June 25, 2009.Her family, friends, and fans hoped and prayed that she would somehow recover from her life threatening illness but unfortuately that was not the case. She will always be remembered for her sexy role as "Jill Munroe" (pictured left) on the hit 70's TV show "Charlie's Angels," as well as for the movies she starred in like "The Burning Bed" and "The Poor Little Rich Girl."'''==

What can I say, Farrah was born February 1947, I will be 62 in October. I liked her hair, I guess. Of course I liked Lee Major's whom she was married to for several years.

But as to all of us, we have been given life on earth for a period of time, than we die. What we do with our life on earth will be to the glory of self, and those whom they want to please. Sometimes there are those who get caught up in TV, etc. and are forced it seems to do what is expected of them. There life is not there life but that of what they have made it to become.

It seems most of the time, they are not really happy, but are forced it seems to do what they really would not do.

Often what we see on TV or the screen is not really what people really are. The media will try to kill about every one that is in public.

I really do not know a lot about Farrah. After Charlie Angels' I didn't follow her. Only in the last year when she was sick and death was near did the attention get on Farrah. And the fact that she was dying and a Roman Catholic. Of course now, she will be said to have gone to Heaven...

Well, I am not the judge. Do I wish she she is? Yes? But.......

This pass week we know of three famous people who have died. They had the world at their hands. They lost their soul in doing what they believed the world would like.

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:34-38)

.

While I hate to put these two people in the same post, I don't want to post about MJ anyway. But I do believe some things need to be said anyway.

.

FOOTNOTE ON THE OTHER PERSON WHO DIED JUST JUST HOURS AFTER Farrah, whom I had no desire to know or listen to, but who had a soul and that is lost forever: He wrote

.

He is dead at the age of 50. He had everything the world offered--but no Jesus.

.

The liner notes from an album of his, and he quoted the final lines from William Ernest Henley's famous poem, Invictus:

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

.

Those are not the words you want written on your tombstone.

---------------------------------------

When tens of millions know your name

And honors swarm about your head

And fortunes rest on your great fame

And then you die.

Well, you are dead.

When you've been great beyond degree

And slept with fame and danced with pride

And you've become an industry

And then you die

Well, then, you've died.

Your fame and wealth won't buy a place

In God's eternal realm of light.

No, that's found only by his grace,

And you chose self

Worm, fire and night.

by Jim Swindle

.

ANOTHER COMMENT MADE IN THE DEATH OF mj

From here we create our own standards of what we think a good person ought to be, but even by our own standards we fail to measure up. Only by deceiving ourselves are we able maintain any level of respectability and righteousness. Often during these pursuits, we find ourselves engaging in all kinds of aberrant behavior simply trying to measure up to our own standards. In it, we are clinging to our own righteousness in order to appease the God we know is there. For many, even in their suppression of the truth, will create a God to their liking and will try to appease him (Rom 1:23), but the God of scripture tells us that all our righteousness is like filthy rags, and he wants nothing to do it them (Isa. 64:6). But, praise God, He then goes on to tell us of the remedy that he has offered in Christ Jesus for all of us have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God (Rom. 3:23) . You see, God the Father sent his son to die upon the cross to bear the punishment for all who will believe in Him (John 3:16) in order to bring us into a right relationship with Him and give us the peace we are seeking.

.

To paraphrase John Donne, when we hear that someone has died and we wonder for whom the bell tolls, there is a sense in which it will always be tolling for us. It is a constant reminder of our own frailty, telling us to be cognizant of our own end, and to ponder what awaits us afterward, and whether or not we are living life the way it should be lived; to the glory of God (Psalm 39:4).

About Me

I am the Pastor/Teacher of Rivers of Joy Baptist Church in Minford, Ohio since August 2008. I am married to Charity since June 14, 1969. I have four grown children. Having served in the local church for over forty years as Pastor/Teacher, Asso., Youth Pastor, Minister of Education, Building Upkeep, Camp Director, Sunday School Teacher, etc. Also I have worked in the public place for as many years as I have preached. Charity and her sister are co owner of Union Mills Conf. (Bakery) in West Portsmouth Ohio